I think about space. One may see only a third of the correct distance when one is going in the desert. We make a mistake: it is bigger than we think. I read this in a text. I found it out in "The Desert Survival Handbook." I went to the Central Library in Los Angeles downtown.

I walked in the direction of the place yesterday. It was a warm spring day. It was half-past-two in the afternoon. I returned out of the sun. I stayed under the shade of high-stories, or houses in the sky (skyscrapers). A group of a few workers trimmed trees along the sidewalks.

I came into there. It was calm and cool within the building. It's built above and below three stories each. I went down the stairs. I took the handbook off the shelf, but it was not taken with me. There was no gap in my satchel for it. What happened? I brought from the shelves on California History other books on Death Valley.

I'm reading about the marvellous stories now. I see in the wonderful book by Richard Lingenfelter there was a lawyer at the start of the twentieth century with the same name as me. John Murphy lived in the remote mining hamlet of Panamint itself! It is a ghost town today that I would like to visit soon.

Did John the attorney wonder at it all? Was he an Irishman? Did he like that most powerful heat? Did he look at beautiful panoramas similar to this vista's image which I show above? How long did he himself last out there? I do not know how many Irish went out west. I must find this out. I will learn more information about these [matters]. Of course, I understand that there were (and are) many such places with men of the same very common name! However, his name was a more popular variant of mine, his with a middle letter "M".

David Jones

Latest Amazon Reviews

Samuel Geregniyan

"The Kiss"

Listmania: Learning Irish

I've studied Irish off and on, living in the U.S., from books and tapes. While I have attended an immersion course in Ireland (Oideas Gael, Glencolmcille in Donegal), most of my learning has been on a self-taught basis. Irish does not come easily to me, but the pleasures from self-disciplined study make the halting ability for me to read the language of my ancestors utterly rewarding. Therefore, my recommendations tend towards the materials that will help the independent learner of the Irish language; many of these have been reviewed in more detail by me at their specific entries on Amazon. Furthermore, my emphasis may be more towards a reading knowledge rather than spoken fluency. For the latter, attend classes, preferably in Ireland!Amazon Listmania: Learning Irish Gaelic

Margaret Clarke

"Mary & Brigid" (1917)

Beginner's Guides: Learning Welsh

Andrew Dickson

"A Country Road" (2012)

What I'm Into (for now)

Books: (both dipping into for the long haul to dip in and out of, among shorter reads) Emma Goldman's Living My Life. Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Karamazov Brothers (Ignet Avsey, tr.) . Music: Bedhead, The Fall, The Gun Club, Hawkwind, High on Fire, Pavement, Roxy Music, Uncle Tupelo, White Fence, Wire.Screen:Black Mirror,Game of Thrones.

Anselm Kiefer

"Sternenfall" ("Falling Stars" 1998)

Miscellanea

Lifelong learner of Irish, fascinated by languages--Old/Middle English and Latin of course; Spanish too, at it in French now; shards of Italian, Welsh + Hebrew: if never that skilled at retaining more than scattered nouns and cognates. Certainly dazes and confuses my family, friends, students.